Machine learning is the fastest growing area of computer science, but it’s typically the domain of specialists. IBM aims to open it up to domain experts at its Enterprise customers to model their own data.

IBM and Nvidia have collaborated to develop a new software suite for Power microprocessors and Nvidia GPUs. Dubbed PowerAI, it’s meant to allow for much faster deep learning and faster problem solving.

The Watson team is on the cutting edge of machine learning, and they’re actively partnering with other research groups to advance the field as quickly as possible. Recently, we had the opportunity to talk to Jerome Pesenti, Vice President of Watson Core Technology, about what IBM has been working on lately, and how it will impact end-users.

On IBM’s Bluemix cloud computing platform, registered developers can integrate Watson’s brainpower into their apps. As of this past week, IBM has added five more features to the Watson Developer Cloud. From speech-to-text to image analysis, devs can now accomplish even more with Watson.

Scientists at IBM Research have created by far the most advanced neuromorphic (brain-like) computer chip to date. The chip, called TrueNorth, consists of 1 million programmable neurons 256 million programmable synapses spread out across 4096 individual neurosynaptic cores. Yes, IBM is now a big step closer to building a brain on a chip.